Bronte garden writes new chapter at Chelsea show

Yorkshire’s Brontë Garden has won a gold medal at the RHS Chelsea Flower Show.

The garden from tourism agency Welcome to Yorkshire celebrates the authors and the Pennine landscape they found so inspiring.

Gary Verity, of Welcome to Yorkshire, said: “The garden has had a non-stop stream of admirers since the show opened but this was the ultimate goal.”

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Tracy Foster, the garden’s designer from Leeds, said: “I’m so proud of what we’ve achieved. I hope the high profile medal inspires more people to come to Yorkshire to see for themselves the landscape that brought gold to the garden.”

The garden is based on a location where a bridge now known as The Brontë Bridge crosses a stream. Stone from a quarry near the Bronte home in Haworth was included in the garden.

Ms Foster added: “The stone is beautiful. We have deliberately not cleaned it so it has aged naturally and it is of the period when the girls would have been walking around the Yorkshire Moors and writing their novels.”

Another gold winner was Leeds University with its first exhibit at Chelsea with a feature echoing a typical northern garden designed by Martin Walker which brings to life academic research showing how simple changes to gardens can help the planet by looking after water resources, encourage bees and create carbon sinks against global warming.

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Rebecca Slack, of the Faculty of Environment, said: “It is estimated that gardens take up between 20-35 per cent of space in urban areas so if we can help gardeners to make a few simple changes to their gardens, it will improve the environment for literally millions of people in the UK.”

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